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A World Full of Monsters by Fahad09
 Anime » Naruto Rated: M, English, Adventure & Humor, Naruto U., OC, Words: 152k+, Favs: 6k+, Follows: 6k+, Published: Mar 18, 2015 Updated: Sep 202,888Chapter 3
Chapter 3 : Birth of a Monster
"Honored Ancestor."
It was such a nostalgic feeling, hearing his voice again.
Like walking into your old childhood bedroom in the home you grew up in only to find it untouched since you last left it, your old game controller tangled up by the tiny tv set while pictures of half-remembered friends lined the walls besides posters of your favourite bands. Or a scent that sends your mind tumbling back to the past reliving old memories you were sure were forgotten. It was the warmth of being embraced by your mother after being away from home for so very long.
It was all that and more.
Yet I had no idea who he was.
Odd. How strange that I felt such kinship with this stranger before me and still, I couldn't help but ask myself 'How long has it been since I last heard him speak?'
Far too long.
It's been such a long time.
They say that when we died and entered heaven, you'd find all that you have ever loved and lost waiting to greet you. Fitting then that I would find him waiting for me in a paradise.
Around us the lush green valley echoed with the soothing sound of flowing water, the murmuring of a brook that danced through the heart of these lands and curved around our feet, fed by the distance falls. Tiny boulders dotted the valley floor and water's edge, large enough for a man to stand comfortably on them, while trees of endless green rose up all around us, casting their soothing shade over our from and onto the emerald grass beneath them.
Other than the soft murmur of the river, the only sound that could be heard were the birds singing as they greeted the coming dawn. In the entirety of my life, I had never seen a place so tranquil as this. Truly, what else could this place be called but paradise?
But my eyes saw none of it, drawn instead to the back of the man standing before me.
Though he faced away from me, his eyes set towards the distant falls, he knew I was there. Long raven locks fell from his head, cascading down all the way to the small of his back, strands of which danced in air as they were tenderly lifted by the breeze.
Then he turned, slowly, revealing a face that I hadn't seen in so very long and I felt overcome with nostalgia.
How long, how long has it been since I've last laid eyes upon this face?
I didn't know who he was, this stranger before me, but I still recognised his face. I felt it in the depth of my bones. The set of his eyes, the lift to his nose, way his lips curved just so, they were all so familiar to me. They reminded me of someone from so long ago, a treasured person who was once so very dear to me. One that I had not seen or heard from for a very, very long time.
I knew this man, this stranger I had never seen before, and I felt my heartache at the sight of him, my vision clouding as tears spilled down my cheeks.
Why? Why did looking at him hurt so much? Why did my heart feel like it was about to burst from the pain?
"Honored Ancestor," He spoke. An honest, open smile on his lips, as he gazed at me with those crimson-red eyes of his, before bowing deeply, moving with such grace it was almost inhuman, "You grant me a great honour with your presence. Though my home is but a humble one please feel welcome, for all within it is yours to command."
Who are you?
"Hmm," His eyebrows rose up in surprise, yet somehow, he even made that action appear elegant. "You do not know?" He looked perplexed, gazing at me with puzzlement before realization seemed to dawn on him and he nodded. "Ah, I see. It seems you have not fully awoken yet."
Awoken?
"Think nothing of it," he smiled at me, "for, in the end, it matters little. Please forgive the rumblings of this foolish man and do not concern yourself over the matter. Instead, allow me the honour of introducing myself to you." He held both his hands up before him, his left clasping his right which was formed into a fist, before bowing deeply once again.
"My name is O-"
"-karu. Psst, hey Hikaru. Hikaru, wake up!"
There was a light shove on my shoulder, as someone tried to shake me awake but I stubbornly ignored them and buried my face deeper into my arms, trying to get back to my dream. There was a pause followed by another shoved, then a second harder one, and the next thing I knew I was falling.
Ever had that feeling when you're just about to fall asleep in bed only to suddenly feel as if you were falling off a cliff and jolt awake? Well, I was experiencing that very same sensation except I was actually falling.
A loud thud echoed through the classroom as I crashed onto the ground, and the next thing I knew I was staring up at the room's white-painted ceiling as I laid sprawled out on my back from my spot on the floor. No, wait a minute, the ceiling wasn't white but a light beige. Huh, never noticed that before. Live and learn I guess.
"Hikaru," I tried turning my head to one side, an awkward motion seeing that pants had gotten caught on something on my way down and I was left half hanging off the chair with my legs still clinging on my seat while the rest of me was sprawled out on the floor, to find an exasperated Iruka looking down at me from the podium.
He bit back his first response and pinched the bridge of his nose, before waving towards my chair. "Just get back in your seat already."
Smiling sheepishly, I quickly scrambled onto my feet and, ignoring the laughter of my classmates, dropped back into my seat. It took a few more seconds for the room to quiet down again and for Iruka, who after one last long-suffering sigh, resumed his lesson.
Once I was sure it was safe, I jabbed my elbow into Naruto's ribs as she continued to snicker.
"What the hell was that for?" I hissed at her.
"Sorry, sorry," Naruto whispered back, though going by the way she wouldn't stop snickering, I didn't believe her, "I didn't think you'd fall out of your seat Hikaru."
I muttered something unpleasant under my breath but left it at that, knowing it was my own fault for falling asleep in class, something that I hadn't done since my first weeks at the Academy.
To be entirely fair that hadn't been entirely my fault. It was hard paying attention in class when I knew everything Iruak was trying to teach so well that I could have walked up to the podium and taught it myself. It was like being forced to learn the ABCs all over again in kindergarten, unbearably boring. You try sitting through something like that and not dozing off.
My inability to stay awake in class naturally infuriated Iruka, but he quickly learned there wasn't anything he could do about it. It wasn't as if the usual punishments would have worked on me. Sending me to stand in the corner did nothing but make me even more bored than I already was, which just exacerbated the issue, and he stopped making me run laps around the school once he figured out I actually preferred it over sitting in class.
Things finally started looking up when he realized that I wasn't lazy, just bored out of my mind because I found the coursework unchallenging. Once I demonstrated to him that I was years ahead of the rest of the class he immediately recommended me for a fast-track program, though I warned him how pointless it was to even try. Sure enough, my father shot that suggestion down almost as soon as the words left Iruka's mouth.
In other words, we were stuck with each other. A student with nothing to learn and a teacher with nothing to teach. However, we both tried our best to make the most out of the situation and came to an unspoken accord.
So long as I remained the top student in the class and didn't disturb the other students, Iruka was willing to look the other way if I pulled out a book to read. Which was great news for me as it meant I could actually learn something during my time at school, then catch up on my physical training when I got home.
It took a while but we eventually found a way to live with each other. That didn't mean we got along though.
Despite constantly being ranked number one in class I was never among Iruka's favourite students, and I doubted I ever would be. Can't say I blamed the guy, it was hard to be proud of a student whose accomplishments you had nothing to do with. Doubly so when said student outclassed everyone you personally taught by miles. Though to give credit where it's due, he had never treated me unfairly because of it. The guy really was an excellent teacher.
Still, I wouldn't have overreacted so badly to being woken up if it wasn't for that weird dream. What was that about anyway?
"So, why'd you wake me?" I asked, rubbing the sleep from my eyes while I resisted the urge to yawn.
"Ah, right," Naruto stopped her snickering as her face lit up with excitement. She quickly picked up two strips of paper that had been sitting on her desk and offered one to me, "Iruka-sensei passed these around. He said we should use it to-"
"To find out our chakra affinity." I finished for her, recognizing the chakra paper for what they were. Looking around I spotted several other students trying to use the paper with mixed results.
Internal chakra manipulation was an intuitive ability that came easily to most while external chakra manipulation, which was needed to activate the strips of paper, was far more difficult to accomplish. Most of my classmates weren't quite at the level where they could pull it off on their first try. Or even their second.
Naruto just pouted at me, "So you already knew." She crossed her arms and looked away. "It isn't fair. How come you always seem to know everything, Hikaru?"
"It's called reading Naruto." I told the girl, "You should try it sometime. If you'd only read all the books I keep giving you to study instead of the bare minimum I allow you to get away with, you'd know just as much as I do."
She stuck her tongue out at me. "Blah, books." She spat out, acting as if the just speaking the word had left a bad taste on her mouth, before turning to glare at the medical book on my desk, the one I had been using as an improvised pillow just minutes ago. "I can't understand how you can even like those things, they're boring. And evil. Evil I tell you!"
I resisted the urge to roll my eyes at the girl's melodramatics. Really, no matter how hard I tried I never was able to get Naruto into reading. It was like Kakashi had once said, Naruto was a Kinesthetic Learner.
While she was nowhere near as stupid as she behaved in the show, and thank every deity out there for that mercy, theory was never going to be her strong point. Practical lessons was where she excelled in.
Once I figured that out, it made things a lot easier to get her to understand her classwork. Naruto's grades began to shoot up nearly overnight and while it wouldn't be accurate to say it had been easy, I could proudly say Naruto was steadily becoming an excellent student.
And after two hard years of training her and playing on her strengths, she wasn't the dead last she was supposed to be. Technically she was the top female student of the class, though that had more to do with the bad turnout of talented kunoichi in this year's crop of students than her own ability.
As Naruto kept on prattling on the evils of books, I took the chance to look her over.
At eight year old, her appearance hasn't changed that much since we first met. Her love for orange clothing hasn't changed, a crime against fashion that I wasn't able to prevent. Though I had thankfully managed to convince her to tone it down to a more reasonable level and mixed it up with other colours, everything she wears was still predominantly orange.
She managed to gain a couple of inches in height though nothing major, and she grew her hair out so that they now just barely brushed her shoulders, but other than that very little about her appearance had changed over the years.
The last change may have been my fault. Apparently being mistaken for a boy all those years ago was traumatizing enough of an experience that she never wanted to have a repeat of again.
But really, that wasn't my fault. How was I supposed to know she was a girl? If there was anyone that should be blamed, then it was Kishimoto.
Now I know that sounds like I'm just dodging the blame but just hear me out on this. I've lived in this world for eight years now and after thinking long and hard on the matter, I've come to the conclusion that this universe was, in fact, the one and the same universe as the Naruto series. Other than my existence and the direct changes that resulted from it, it was a perfect replica of the Manga.
But if that were the case then why wasn't Naruto a boy? Or why wasn't I kidnapped? The solution was simple; the reason why some things were different was because Kishimoto had altered the plot of the Manga so that it would sell better.
Think about it. Naruto was a Shounen manga. How many successful Shounen mangas were there with female leads?
Naruto had always been a girl but Kishimoto, knowing that most of his audience would be young adolescent boys, naturally concluded that they would have trouble relating to a female lead. So in order to better suit his target demographic, he had flipped the main character's gender from female to male.
And when you start thinking about it that way, it made you wonder what else had Kishimoto changed? What other details was he willing to twist to make a better story? That's when it hit me, the Hyuuga Affair. Everything relating to the event was something he made up to make the story more entertaining.
Neji's entire character arc, his tragic past, all of it was something Kishimoto made up to spice up the plot. And let's admit it, Neji's past and character development was awesome to watch even if it was littered with plot holes in hindsight.
Take a moment to consider how little Neji's past made sense.
The entire source of Neji's psychological trauma was based on a misunderstanding. He thought that Hiashi, his uncle, had murdered his father on a cruel whim. Which wasn't even true. What made it worse was that Hiashi could have easily nipped the entire issue in the bud. All he had to do was sit Neji down and explain that he had not murdered his father, rather Hizashi willingly sacrificed himself to save his life. But for some stupid reason, Hiashi allowed Neji to continue living under the false assumption that he murdered his own brother for years.
Hell, why had Hizashi even allowed himself to be killed in front of his son? Couldn't he have just chosen another time to pull the stunt off? At the very least he could have waited for the boy to leave or explained to him what he planned to do. To avoid traumatizing his preteen son, if nothing else.
See what I meant? Plot holes everywhere.
Then there were other facts that supported my theory, especially the one that Naruto had always been a girl. Think back on Naruto's behaviour during the entire show, only this time imagine she was a girl instead of a boy, and things started making a frightening amount of sense.
Naruto's obsession with getting Sasuke back had nothing to do with their friendship or her promise to Sakura, she wanted to get Sasuke back because she was in love with him. And while the thought of anyone falling for that prick made me sick, it all fits. Even that accidental kiss between the two at the start of the show takes on a completely different light if you realized that Naruto was a girl.
Hell, even Sai's infamous nickname for her made a lot more sense.
She really was 'Dickless'.
That's right, it turns out that the Naruto series was nothing more than one big fat love story between Sasuke and Naruto.
Shuddering at the thought of me ever enjoying a show about a romance between the two, I quickly looked for something to take my mind off it and was fortunate enough to find just the thing.
Snatching one of the strips of chakra papers out of her hand, I interrupted her speech about evils books, which she had still been rattling on about. "Hey Naruto, are you ever going to use that thing or not."
Naruto quickly brightened, "That's right! I almost forgot." She held the paper in front of her face, gazing at it in excitement before freezing. Naruto slowly turned back to look at me with a sheepish smile on her face, "How are these things supposed to work again?"
I rubbed my temples before sighing at the girl, "And this is why you should crack open a book from time to time, or at least try to pay a bit more attention in class." While Naruto was far from stupid, she had the attention span of an alcoholic gnat.
"Sorry, sorry." She rubbed the back of her head in embarrassment before turning her excited blue eyes on me. "So, how do they work?"
Raising my hand up between us with the strip of paper held between my index and middle fingers, I said, "Simple, just draw out your chakra and direct it into the paper. That's pretty much it, the rest is automatic. The paper will undergo a different chemical reaction depending on your chakra affinity. If your chakra leans towards fire it will burn, if its water it will get wet, wind will cut in two, lightning will crinkle it, while earth will turn it to dust." I explained before demonstrating by pouring my own chakra into the paper.
To me, calling on my chakra had always felt like drawing water from a deep but full well. It wasn't enough to simply open up my reserves, I had to coax it out, just like pulling a bucket from a well. The hard part was making sure to only draw out the precise amount needed and nothing more. Too little and nothing will happen, too much and I'll end up wasting chakra.
Most people didn't really care if they wasted a little bit of chakra but to me the very thought was sacrilegious. It may have been to my experiences as a toddler but I couldn't imagine letting a single drop go to waste.
I had first managed to access my chakra when I was little more than a babe, and I couldn't begin to describe how little of it I had back then. At times it felt that I had barely begun to draw on my meagre supplies before it emptied out. I had been forced to learn to ration my chakra, to use as little as possible without wasting so much as a single drop. For every drop of chakra was precious, something that I couldn't afford to waste.
Those lessons that I learned long ago, at a time where I could neither talk nor walk, serve me well now.
You only needed a minuscule amount of chakra to activate the paper, less than a thimble full, and I used exactly that. Pulling on my chakra supply I drew out a tiny amount, so little that even I could barely sense, before shaping it into a thin thread and weaving it up my arm, thorough my hand and out of my fingers to pierce the chakra paper with all the precision of threading a needle.
Not a drop was wasted. Chakra control on a level that it had been described as near perfect more than once. Even among Hyuugas, who were famed for their control, mine was remarkable.
The paper crumpled between my fingers, confirming what I had already known.
"It crinkled," Naruto looked fascinated by the paper's transformation, "That means lightning, right?"
"Right." I nodded and knocked my knuckles on the medical textbook I had been studying. "Every element has its own set of advantages, it's up to you to figure out what they are and how to use them. That's why I've been studying medicine, to work with my affinity."
"Hmm, so that's why you've been reading those books so much." She frowned down at the textbook in question, "So you want to become a medical-nin?"
I smiled and shook my head, "No, I don't." Before she had the chance to ask me anything I nodded towards the remaining strip of chakra paper in her hand. "Are you ever going to use that thing or not?"
"Ah! Right, it's my turn." Straightening up in her seat, Naruto held the paper in both of her hands before shutting her eyes to concentrate. Her chest expanded as she took a long deep breath then as she slowly exhaled the air out called upon her chakra.
A wave of blue light erupted out of her, so dense that it was visible to the naked eye even without the Byakugan. It swirled around, burning in the air like liquid fire, fighting her every step of the way as she tried to guide it towards the paper in her hands.
If calling on chakra was like drawing water from a well to me, then for Naruto it was like opening the gates of a damn. She never needed to coax it out, her chakra was all too willing to come gushing out on its own. Where normal people needed to pull on their chakra, Naruto needed to push it back or else she would be overwhelmed by it.
So instead of using just the minimum amount of chakra she needed, nothing more than a drop, she had called forth flood instead.
To be entirely fair, chakra control of that level wasn't an easy feat for anyone let alone for someone with Naruto's unique set of circumstances. As far as I knew I was the only one in our age group that could manage chakra control anywhere near that precise.
Naruto visibly struggled for several seconds, literally fighting to hold back her own power, and barely managed to succeed. With a force of will, she reigned in her chakra and forced it up her hands. The paper she held was filled with chakra, surrounded by it, flooded by it, before it-
"It split?" Naruto blinked owlishly at the strip of paper that was cut cleanly in two before turning to me, "That means its wind right?"
"Yup," I nodded, feeling a sense of satisfaction build up in me at the sight of it, "it's wind alright." This only helped to confirm that my theory was right. That Naruto had the same element as the manga was proof that this really was the same universe.
Then the chakra paper burst into flames.
"Wha-Ouch!" Naruto yelped and dropped the flaming paper before sticking her singed fingers in her mouth. She glared down at the chakra paper, which had already burned itself out so that nothing but ash and cinder remained. "What was that?"
I just stared dumbly at what remained of the paper, which had suffered the same fate as all the theories I had about this world, namely, burst into flames and burned down to ashes.
No, no this was wrong. This wasn't supposed to happen. Naruto only had a wind affinity in the manga, not fire. If she had more than one then that meant…did, did this mean my theories were wrong?
"Wait," Naruto blinked as the same realization of her chakra hit her as well, "It burst into flame after it was cut in two. But that means…" I watched as a large shit-eating grin slowly made its way up to her face. "That means I have not one but two chakra affinities. Fire and wind."
Naruto jumped off her seat and stomped one foot on her desk. "Ha! You hear that Sasuke-teme? I got two affinities!" She yelled out, "Beat that Teme!"
A piece of white chalk sailed through the air and slammed into Naruto's forehead with so much force that it immediately crumbled into dust on impact, knocking her off the table and onto the ground.
"Naruto! Quiet down!" Iruka ordered from the front of the class, bouncing a second piece of chalk up and down in his hand. "First of all Sasuke isn't even here today so he can't hear you. Second, you don't have two affinities."
What! My eyes shot toward Iruka as a flicker of hope reignited in me.
"What!" Naruto, equally as surprised as I was, leapt back up onto her feet, "But-but Iruka-sensei, I saw the paper get cut in two before it caught on fire, I swear! I'm not lying."
"I'm not accusing you of lying Naruto, just misinterpreting the results," Iruka replied soothingly. "You're right that your affinity is wind, but you're wrong about having a fire affinity. If you'd been paying attention during class, you'd know that chakra paper is highly sensitive to chakra. So much so that it has the tendency to ignite when too much chakra is poured through it." He pointed to the pile of ash on her desk. "Just like what happened to you. Which was why I warned everyone when I handed the strips out to use only a little bit of chakra."
Oh, thank god for Iruka-sensei, the greatest teacher in this universe. Damn it Naruto, don't scare me like that! You almost gave me a heart attack.
"A-ahaha," Naruto let out an awkward laugh as she realized her mistake, "Oops?"
Iruka just sighed and pointed at her desk, "Just sit down and try to pay better attention from now on."
"You betcha Iruka-sensei." Naruto quickly agreed and dropped back on into her seat. The moment Iruka looked away however, Naruto quickly dropped her smile and glared at an empty seat near the front of the class. "That Sasuke-teme, it's not fair. Why does he get to ditch class today?"
I turned my eyes to the girl, "You mean you haven't heard?"
Naruto just looked perplexed and cocked her head at me. "Heard what?"
It took me just a second to tell that she was being honest. Naruto never could lie to me. It was her eyes; they always showed what she was thinking.
"Nothing," picking up my book, I flipped it open and began reading, more for an excuse to drop the topic than anything. "If you don't know then it's fine. You'll hear out about it sooner or later anyway."
"Eh, that only makes me want to know even more now. Hikaru don't be like that. Come on, please, I really want to know. Hikaru? Hey, Hikaru-" Naruto was blasted backwards off her seat as another piece of chalk slammed into her head with all the precision of a sniper's bullet.
"Naruto! What did I just say about paying attention in class?"
"Sorry, Iruka-sensei." Naruto shot back into her seat almost as fast as she had fallen off, sitting up straight and facing ahead as she paid rapt attention to class, a white streak on her forehead.
It was at moments like this that I truly appreciated Iruka. He was probably the only person other than my mother and me that could reign Naruto in.
With the lesson resuming and Naruto's focus off me, I allowed myself to relax a bit and turned my thoughts back on the missing Uchiha.
Of course, Sasuke wasn't here. There was no way he could be, not after what happened. I don't think there was anyone in the village that hasn't heard by now. Well, except for Naruto.
I really shouldn't have been surprised by that. Other than my family, Iruka and a couple of classmates, Naruto didn't really have anyone to talk to besides me. And since I didn't tell her, odds were no one else had. And I wasn't about to tell her why Sasuke was missing. She was only eight years old, there were some things she was better off not knowing. This was one of them.
The Uchiha Clan Massacre had happened last night.
Right now Sasuke was probably lying in some hospitable bed, trying to sleep off the effects of Tsukuyomi where he had been forced to watch his brother murder his entire family over and over again.
No, Naruto didn't need to know anything about that.
The news had just started to trickle in when I woke up this morning and by the time I left the entire compound had been in an uproar over it. No one knew exactly what had happened, just bits and pieces of conflicting information that usually brought up more questions than it answered. But it was enough for me to puzzle out the truth. By sundown, no doubt the entire village will know too.
Which was why I had to act, now, before I let this chance slip me by.
With every passing hour, more news would spread further and further, driving every ninja in the village to arms. The Hokage would have no choice but to mobilize his forces and send every man he had available to either hunt Itachi down or to scour the ruins of the Uchiha compound for information.
And with the Uchiha Clan being no more, he was even more shorthanded than he had already been.
This meant that he had to pull ninjas away from less critical duties to help aid in the hunt. Ninja on guard duty would be among those called upon, ninjas like the ones that are supposed to be protecting Naruto.
There wasn't a single Anbu guarding Naruto this morning. I checked. For the last couple of years, there had always been one guard shadowing Naruto wherever she went but not today. Today, they were all gone.
It made sense. As important as Naruto was she wasn't in any real danger while she remained in the village. I've been with Naruto for two years now and I don't think there has been a single occasion where the guards needed to act.
With the village going into total lockdown, if it hasn't already, there was even less of a chance of that happening. No, the only danger that anyone was afraid of was the one outside the walls, where Uchiha Itachi was currently roaming free.
This presented me with a chance. A once in a lifetime opportunity.
Right now there were less shinobi in the village than there has ever been. Not in my lifetime at least. With the vast majority of them on the manhunt, it meant that there were fewer eyes in the village watching. Less chance of anyone catching me.
It was time.
I had been planning for this day, literally since the day I was born. I had never once forgotten my goal, my ambition. All of my hard work and planning had been for that one single purpose. And tonight, I will be taking my very step towards achieving my goal.
All of the pieces were in place. For better or for worse, the time has come.
It was time to act.
Once the morning lessons had ended and recess started I nudged Naruto. "Hey, Naruto."
"Hmm?"
"Change of plans. Looks like I'm not going to be able to make it for the sleepover at your place tonight. I'm going to need you to cover for me."
Mankind was old.
Our written history could be measured in millennia, our records dating back to a period where extinct animals still lived among us but we had walked the world long before then. Our species was an old one.
Before we had the written word we had built cities, learned how to cultivate the land and tame the elements. Before we had learned how to speak we wandered the earth with stone clenched in fist and hides of predators warped around our form. Before even that? None knew. There was no one left who could tell us of the early days of man.
No one remembered their tales, nothing remained of their lives, of their stories, song or culture, and yet still, they managed to reach out to us.
Walkthrough the caves of ancient man and you'd find their markings on the walls. Paints of gazelles, buffaloes and bears. Of animals long gone and others who have never left. But in each of these caves scattered throughout the world, you'd find one painting in them all.
A handprint.
In every cave, in every tribe, in every continent that man walked, you'd find a similar print. Millennia ago they had stood on that very spot and placed their hand there before painting around it and leaving their mark. If you ever walked by one and happened to place your hand over theirs then know that uncounted ages ago, someone had stood there, pressed their hand against the very stone you currently touched and left a mark for you to find. A message for you to hear.
'I was here'
The ghost of the past yelled out through the ages just to deliver that single message to you. We were here. The weight of the time between the two of you, the sheer scale, would be enough to overwhelm even the greatest of mind that dared contemplate it.
And yet, even those ancient walls could not hold a candle to the stone monument standing before me.
Shadows danced on its cold surface, rippling like a pebble tossed into a lake, ebbing to and for as the flames lining the walls flicked on the nonexistent wind. Words I couldn't read we engrave down in neat columns, promising to reveal its secrets to any with the wisdom to unravel it.
It was old. Older than living memory and more ancient than the walls of the village that housed it. Yet the ages held no sway on it. While the world around it decayed, civilizations rose and fell, and even the mountains worn down by the hands of time, it remained untouched.
Even now, in this dim darkness of the room illuminated only by undying flames that burned with no visible fuel, I couldn't spot a single flaw on its smooth stone. No chips or scratches marred its smooth surface. It looked pristine as if it had just been freshly carved by its maker's hands rather than centuries-old. Proud and flawless, it mocked time with its existence
I ignored it.
It didn't matter how remarkable the stone monument was, my attention was captivated by something far more fascinating.
I was crouching against the back wall of the room, pressing myself against the corner where the stairwell met the wall, and as I watched the room through the Byakugan I felt a sense of wonder fill me.
To the Uchihas that had once guarded the place, it was the stone tablet that sat in the heart of the room that had garnered their fascination. But to me, it was the walls that held mine. For they were every bit as incredible, if not more so, than the tablet it housed.
My eyes, the Byakugan, could see through anything, past anything. From the very peaks of mountains, through miles of solid rock, my eyes could see through it all. It could even spot minute traces of chakra far too small to be seen by the naked eye. In my entire life, I had never encountered anything that it could not see through.
Until now.
These walls did not exist. I could feel them as I pressed my hand on them, trace their patterns under my fingers, but to my all-seeing eyes, they did not exist. When I gazed at them with the Byakugan all I was dirt and earth.
For the first time in my life I encountered something that even the Byakugan could not perceive.
Hours earlier, when I first set foot in the Nakano Shrine and tried searching for the Uchiha's secret meeting room, I could not find it anywhere with my eyes. I knew it was hidden somewhere underneath the tatami mats, though which one exactly I did not remember, but even when I knew where to look I could not see it with my eyes. My Byakugan showed me nothing but solid earth underneath the temple grounds. It was only after I began flipping over the mats that I was able to find the entrance.
Even now, when I stood within its walls, I could not pierce through it. All the Byakugan showed me was endless earth and dirt that stretched out for an eternity. It was as if the Shrine and open-air that I knew laid above me simply ceased to exist the moment I set foot into this room.
It's been hours since and I've made no progress. I wasn't here to examine the walls but as I hid myself in the room and waited for my target, trying to uncover their mysteries certainly helped pass the time. I didn't know how long I had been here, back pressed against the wall and hiding in a corner without moving but I knew that it had to be hours. Without a watch, there was no way to tell for sure but I felt confident that the sun had set long ago and it was well into the night.
But I refused to move.
I didn't twitch or made any motion that would give away my presence. The only action I permitted myself to make was to allow my eyes to roam the room, confident that small action would not give me away.
It wasn't something easy to do, to stand motionless there for hours. Even with chakra to relieve my aching muscles it was nigh unbearable. But still, I refused to move.
He was coming. I knew he was, all I had to do was be patient and I'll get my chance. So I remained standing there, in the dark, hidden from view even as I remained alone in the empty room.
After trying and failing once again to look through the walls I forced myself to look away and turned my sight to the other treasure in this room. The stone monument, the Uchiha Clan's most prized heirloom.
On its surface the secrets of chakra lay engraved. The entire origin and history of the Shinobi world was there, free for anyone to read so long as they had the eyes to do so. The secrets of the Sharingan, the Rinnegan, all of it was written on its surface.
There were so many people in the world that were willing to kill for this thing and the secrets it contained had they only known it existed. No doubt many have killed for it in the past. I wonder how many deaths had it witnessed over the years?
Snorting at the thought, I looked down at the Kunai I held in my gloved hands. It doesn't matter how many deaths it had already seen, because tonight I was about to add one more to the tally. It may have been a treasure worth more than its weight in gold but to me, it was nothing more than bait to draw in my prey.
It really was ironic that-
Something moved.
I froze, not moving even a single muscle. From my spot beside the staircase, with the wall to my back, I was hidden from view from anyone looking down into the room. But that also meant that they were hidden from my view. And as I heard the telltale sound of wood scraping against wood, I couldn't help but curse the walls around me that left me as blind as my prey, before moonlight flooded the room as someone pulled the trapdoor open.
Silence.
Nothing moved.
I couldn't tell how long it had been. Minutes, hours, seconds? I had no idea. My sense of time was shot. But I didn't dare move, scarily even dared to breathe, as my heartbeat so loudly it my chest that it hurt. I couldn't see a thing, my Byakugan all but worthless in this room, so I couldn't tell who it was. All I could do was wait for him to come to me. So that's what I did. Wait. Hidden away in my corner I waited, ready for whatever happened.
But nothing happened.
I tried to keep track of time and began to count the seconds as they passed, making sure to keep my breathing slow and steady as I could make it. When I hit the ten seconds mark, I remained calm, certain he would come. That my trap was perfect. Twenty seconds passed. And I was still sure that things would work. Thirty seconds. Forty. Fifty.
It was when I hit the sixty second count that doubt began to sink in. Ninety seconds. One hundred. When the second minute had come and gone, panic began tightening its grip on me.
Why? Why wasn't he coming down? It's been too long, he should have been down by now. Was he even there anymore? He…he hasn't left, has he? No, no that was impossible. He wouldn't leave, not without examining the monument. So he was still up there. But then, why hasn't he come down? Did, did I…
Did I make a mistake?
Gears upon gears spun in the depths of my mind, whirling as my thoughts went into overdrive and I mentally retraced all of my steps.
As soon as the Academy had ended I had set off, stopping only twice on my way here. Once to pick up a discarded kunai from a random training field, and second to make sure I wasn't being followed.
I wasn't.
No one knows I'm here.
So where had I gone wrong? At the shrine? Did I make a mistake there? Had I disturbed anything? No, I made sure to return everything to its proper place after I finished searching for the room's entrance. It had been a pain to pull off, but I meticulously returned everything to its exact position. I even made sure to return the tatami mat covering the entrance in its proper place as I shut the door behind me. I hadn't left any signs that I was ever there.
Then why hasn't he come down?
Unless…
Did he spot me?
Was he…was he watching me right now?
How? How was that possible? If he could see me then I should be able to see him. The wooden stairs blocked our view from the other, so he couldn't have seen me. Then what? Why wasn't he-
*creek*
My mind froze as the stairs groaned, straining as it bore the weight of someone making their way down.
His footsteps were slow and cautious, making it feel like an eternity had passed between each step. With each step my instincts screamed, demanding me to act, to move, to attack, to do something, anything but I fought the instinct down. Instead, I crouched down ever so slowly, making myself smaller, before remaining completely motionless.
A lifetime must have passed before he reached the bottom of the stairs, but I managed to keep myself still the entire time, and I was finally rewarded when I caught sight of him. His back was faced towards me when he appeared, only a few feet away, so close that I could almost reach out and touch him. I could tell he was looking at the stone tablet, but all he had to was glance over his shoulder and I'd be spotted.
My instincts screamed, attack - now! - while he still hasn't seen me, while his back was still turned, but again I forced it down.
Not yet…
A little long. Just a little bit longer and I'd get my chance. Soon he'd been too engrossed in reading the stone monument to pay any attention to what's happening around him. Then, and only then I'll attack. But for now, I had to wait.
So I remained crouched in my little corner as I watched him make his way to the stone tablet, each step taking him closer to his goal and father away from me. He soon stepped into the light cast by the flames that bracketed the tablet, allowing me to get my first proper glimpse of him.
His hair was inky black, blending well with the darkness, while his clothing was of dark grey. On his back sat his clan emblem, clear for all to see.
Yes, it was definitely him.
Again I had to fight back the urge to strike.
Not yet…
When he reached the front of the momentum he stopped. He stood before the tablet, motionless and unmoving for a long while. I watched him carefully, looking for any signs. It was then that I noticed the slight turning of his head, from right to left. as he began to read the text.
Now.
Years of training was put to the test as I took my first step forward, silent as a shadow. In my head, I could hear my trainers telling how to move my feet and I obeyed instinctively without question. With each step I led with my toes, placing it lightly on the ground followed by the balls of my feet before shifting my weight forward in a single smooth motion. I didn't make a sound as I strode ahead, taking one step. Then another, and another, slowly but steadily closing the distance between my target and me.
Ten meters turned to eight, and he still hadn't moved. In the time it took you to blink eight meters became to six. Then three, until only two remained.
Then I was within striking distance.
With the kunai held tightly in my hand, in a reverse grip, I raised my arm high and lunged.
I didn't know what went wrong.
I must have made a sound or triggered some kind of sixth sense, because just as I brought the weapon down he stopped reading and began to turn.
It didn't matter.
Too late.
In a motion I had practised a thousand times the kunai dipped downwards and pierced the back of his head, sinking almost hilt deep into his skull.
It was almost anticlimactic how he just collapsed bonelessly onto his knees before flopping face-first onto his front. He never got a chance to do anything, not even see his killer's face.
He was dead before he even hit the ground.
That was how I found myself standing over the corpse, feeling oddly calm. I didn't feel nervous or afraid or anything. All my jitters and nerves were gone as if they were never there to begin with.
I had just committed my first murder and yet I felt so calm that it shocked me. It was surreal. I don't know what I had been expecting but I had expected to feel something...more, I guess? I wasn't sure what, just something. But the only thing that I felt other than calmness was the mild feeling of disbelief.
That's it? That was it? Just like that and it's over? I almost couldn't believe it, but the dead body by my feet told me otherwise. For all of my planning, a part of me honestly didn't believe it would work. I thought something would go wrong, in fact, I was sure of it. That I missed something or someone and the whole thing would fall apart at the last second.
But it hadn't.
Everything had gone according to plan.
It was almost…
…easy
Hell, it was easy. That was ridiculously easy.
Was killing really supposed to be that easy?
Then I laughed.
I didn't know why, I just did. Just threw my head back and laughed in that dark room, standing next to a fresh corpse. It wasn't due to shock, I knew that much. My hands were steady and my thoughts were too clear for it to be shock. In the end, it may have been the realization of just how twisted this world must be for killing to be so damn easy that I had to laugh.
Then like flipping a switch, I stopped.
Now wasn't the time, I still had work to do. Like making sure that the guy really was dead. Sadly it was a very real possibility. While I was sure a kunai to the brain was as dead as you can get, I remembered characters from the show surviving worse. This guy, in particular, was practically a cockroach for all times he survived things that he had no right walking away from, so I wasn't going to risk it.
I had to make sure.
There was surprisingly little blood coming from the body but I was still careful not to get any on me when I slid my foot under his shoulder and flipped him over onto his back.
Uchiha Sasuke stared up at me with empty dead eyes.
Crouching down next to him, I placed my fingers on his throat and searched for a pulse. I found none. Now I was certain. Uchiha Sasuke was dead.
"You know, I'm surprised. I'm honestly surprised on how well that all worked out." I started speaking to the boy as if he could somehow hear me through death. "When I first thought of this plan I thought it was going to be impossible. I mean, you're one of the main characters! Do you know how hard it is to kill a main character? You guys always seemed to survive impossible situations with the most bullshit excuses that a part of me just couldn't believe that anything I did would ever end up killing any of you. But here we are, me alive and you…" I waved a hand over his corpse, "…dead.
"Well, I guess this just goes to show you that you're not the main character anymore." I leaned down next to the corpse and whispered into his ear, "I am."
I rose up from my crouch and began pacing. "For a long while I wasn't sure what to do. I mean sure, I knew what my goals were and I knew I needed to grow strong if I wanted any chance of achieving them. So I trained. Trained my ass off like you wouldn't believe. But let's be real here, it wouldn't have been enough. Do you know how many enemies there are out there? Madara, Obito, Nagato, Danzo and, well, there were just too many to count really. This world was full of monsters, and all of them were playing this game. Training alone won't be enough to beat all of them. Had I just continued as I was, I would have ended up as nothing more than another piece on this board game that they played.
"Not a player but a piece. A valuable one, maybe, but that was there was no way I was ever going to allow that to happen.
"I was no one's piece.
"So I knew I had to act, to stop being just another piece on the board waiting to be played and step out of the game to become a player instead. To play the game instead of being played. And with all my knowledge about the future, I knew I could do it. I just needed to decide on how."
"So I asked myself, when should I act?" I began to pace, my arms crossed behind my back as I walked a few steps before I spun in place then repeated the action. "It was actually a much trickier question than it sounded. The butterfly effect was all too real here, so I knew if I made too great a change too early that all my future knowledge would be worthless. But let's face it, my very existence might have been enough to throw the entire plot out the window given enough time, so I knew I had to act soon and I had to make it count. I only got one shot at this. So once again I asked myself, at what point could I make the biggest difference for my benefit."
"And then it hit me." I snapped my fingers and pointed at the dead Sasuke. "You. In the future, you would become the biggest pain in the ass to, well, everybody. I don't think there was a single side or village that you didn't screw over in some way. You would join Akatsuki, become Tobi's lackey and that's not even mentioning your attempt to commit total genocide at a village filled with innocent people in a misguided attempt to avenge your family. In short you would become a serious threat one day. Not just to the Leaf or the Elemental Nations, but to me and my goals." I stopped my pacing and smiled down at him. "And that's why I had to stop you now, while you're still weak.
"You see, no matter how dangerous you become in the future, no matter how skilled you grow or how powerful a ninja you'll turn into, that's all in the future. Far off in the distant future, and it had nothing to do with the here and now. Because now, as in right in this moment, you're nothing but a boy. A helpless little child. So before you grew, before the boy became a man and a threat, I decided to nip you in the bud.
"But," I held up a finger, "but, I knew that wasn't as easy as it sounded." I resumed my pacing, "It is one thing to talk about killing and quite another thing to actually do it. And now while I didn't like you, and I never made a secret of that, a part of me still hesitated over killing you. I mean, could I really go through with it? Could I really kill a kid, a technically innocent little boy just for my own gains? Believe it or not I have never killed anyone before today and I wasn't sure I had it in me to go through with it. Not when it came to killing a child. But then I remember something." Again I stopped my pacing and leaned over Sasuke, "Something rather important.
"I remembered all of the things you did, all of the things you will do if I let you live. I remembered all the people you hurt and killed, all of those whose trust you betrayed. But most importantly, I remember the Valley of the End, where a friend and teammate appeared before you. She came to stop you, with no thoughts of profit or gains, for no other reason than friendship she came to save you from your own darkness, even risking her life to do so."
I smiled at him, it wasn't a pretty thing. "And do you remember what you did? Do you remember what you did to your teammate, your friend, your – and dare I even say it - so-called best friend? Do you remember? No. Then here, let me remind you." I raised my foot above him and held it there for a heartbeat before bringing it down, stomping on his chest so hard I felt several ribs snap beneath my heels.
"YOU SHOVED A FUCKING CHIDORI THROUGH HER CHEST YOU PRICK! THAT'S WHAT! YOU TORE A FIST-SIZED HOLE IN NARUTO'S CHEST! MY FRIEND'S FREAKING CHEST! DID YOU THINK I'D JUST SIT BACK AND LET YOU GET AWAY WITH IT!" I pressed my weight onto my foot as I grounded my heel into his chest, making sure to rub his shattered bones together in a way that would have been pure agony had he still been alive.
Then, like a flip being flicked in my mind, I suddenly stopped as the sheer absurdity of what I was doing hit me.
Removing my foot off Sasuke's chest, I forced myself to take a couple of steps back before turning away. With deep breaths I began to run through the mental steps of a mediation exercise that I had been taught as part of my training. It took longer than I expected, almost an entire minute, before I felt in control of myself to turn back around and face him.
"And that wasn't the worst of it." I continued pleasantly, as if I hadn't just caved his chest in, "As I distinctly remember you breaking Naruto's neck long before that happened. Right at the start of the fight, when you dive-bombed her straight into the rocky ground. Sure, it wasn't as flashy as the whole Chidori through the chest thing but I remember the event pretty vividly." Walking up to him, I stopped near his head and crouched down.
"And when I remembered that I realized that yes," I nodded, "I could kill you. I will kill you…and I did. I knew that if the Uchiha Massacre happened then that was it for you, that sooner or later you would have ended up being a monster in your own right and there was no going back. You would have done a whole lot worse to the world at large if I let you live. And let's face it," I raised my hand to his face before patting his cheek condescendingly. "I never did like you anyway," I smirked down at him before standing back up and resumed my pacing, an old habit that helped me think.
"And I knew just when to do it too. I couldn't kill you earlier, not when your family made up the entirety of the Konoha police force. Nor could I wait until later, when you grew strong enough to put up a fight. No, it had to be now. Right now, while Konoha was in too much of an uproar over the massacre of one of its most powerful Clans to think about guarding one orphaned child or even notice you're missing, and by the time they do, the trail would have long gone cold."
"And the best part is, I didn't have to do anything. Between you and your brother, you set everything up for me. You've even given me the perfect murder location." I raised my arms to indicate the room at large. "Look at this place, it's perfect. It's impossible to detect from the outside and, here is the kicker, no one alive in this village knows about it other than me." I turned to him, "Well, you too I suppose but you're not about to tell anyone about this place anytime soon, are you?
"I'm going to leave you here." Glancing around I took in the sight of the place as I started circling the room. "Look around you Sasuke, because this place is going to be your tomb. Your grave. When I walk out of here I'm going to shut the door behind me and never come back. No one will ever know you're in here. Hell, no one will even know for sure what happened to you. Did Itachi come back to finish the job? Did you run away? Get kidnapped? Commit suicide? Who knows?" I shrugged, "It's a total mystery."
"And here is the part that I really love about the whole thing. Even if they do eventually find out what happened to you, no one, and I mean no one will ever suspect me of killing you. Because I have no motive." I laughed. "That's right, even if my alibi, flimsy as it is, falls through no one will ever connect me to your murder. Why? Because why would I do it? For what possible reason would I, an eight-year-old child, murder you, a classmate that he hasn't spoken to in two years?"
"And then there are the other benefits your death would bring. With you gone, Orochimaru will never attack the leaf or at least is less likely to without the incentive of the Sharingan, which might mean that Sarutobi will survive the end of Chunin Exams. And then there is, of course, Itachi. As long as he doesn't have a breakdown over your death, then Itachi will dedicate the remainder of his life to protecting the Leaf, because let's face it, now that you're gone that's all he'll have left."
"Hell, what am I saying?" I turned to look at him, "Without you, without Uchiha Sasuke in this story, everything changes. With you gone, the entire future, the story's plotline, all of it gets thrown out the window. Your death will make all my knowledge of the future near worthless. And you know what?" I held my arms open, "I'm just fine with that."
"I could have sat back and done nothing, just stuck with the original plotline. But if I did, I would have been nothing but a puppet to fate, or to destiny or whatever you wanted to call it, and I refuse to be anyone's puppet. As if I'd ever allow myself to sit back and play my role as someone's obedient little bitch. So instead of dancing to the strings of fate known as 'canon', I'd rather forge my own path, my own story. After all, didn't I already say it?
"I'm the main character now. This is my story. Not anyone else's. This tale will no longer be about a lonely little child who dreams of becoming the Hokage, all so that she may one day be acknowledged. Nor is this a tale of an Avenger and his quest for revenge. No, this is the tale of Hyuuga Hikaru, the man who will one day obtain the Rinnegan and become a God."
"For you see," I pointed down at him, "what I want is not Nagato's Rinnegan, not Madara's. No, I have no interest in those fakes. What I want is the real thing, the true Rinnegan. I want Otsutsuki Kaguya's Rinnegan."
I looked up for a moment, lost in my memories, "I have seen her use it Sasuke, I have seen the power she can wield with those eyes and it is a thing of wonder to behold." I turned to look down at the boy. "I have seen her walk between dimensions as easily as you and I walk through doors, create entire worlds with but a thought, return to the world of the living as if death was nothing more than an inconvenience and create new life with but a flick of her finger.
"I want that power." Even to my own ears, the sheer longing in my voice was frightening.
"I will have that power. One day I will find her, I will reach out to whatever realm or plane of existence that Kaguya lives in and when I do, I will pluck those divine eyes straight out of her skull. And then the Rinnegan will be mine!" A wicked grin graced my face as I turned back to Sasuke.
"And…and…and," Slowly the grin began to melt away as it hit me, "and what the hell am I doing talking to a corpse for?" I blinked again before face-palming. "Please someone tell me I did not just monologue my entire plan like some kind of cliché Bond villain to a dead corpse?"
For the next few seconds, I just stood there with my face in my hand, before I doubled over in laughter. "Pfft-Hahahaha, oh my god that's hilarious. That has got be the most stupidest thing I've ever done." I turned to look to my one corpse audience. "I guess your death must have been a bigger shock to me than I expected, eh Sasuke? Hahahaha."
My laughter rang out in the room for the next several seconds until I managed to reign it in. Letting out one more snicker, I shook my head clear and I straightened up. After looking myself over for any signs of blood, and finding none, I turned to give Sasuke one final look, smiling as I did. "Well, it's been fun and all Sasuke but I've wasted enough time with you for one night so I'm heading back. But before I leave let me tell you this one final thing, for it will be the last thing you'll ever hear Uchiha Sasuke." The smile dropped from my lips and I stared down at him with cold eyes, "Goodbye."
Then I turned and left, and didn't look back.
I never saw Sasuke again.
The staircase rose before me, and I set my foot on the first step. Looking down I realised the symbolism immediately. I had finally done it, I had taken my first step towards my goal. The die has been cast and can't be taken back; I was in this for keeps now.
Good.
I took my second and third step up the stairs, leaving the light from the flames that illuminated the room behind me, ascending to the darkness above me, where the entrance to the Shrine lay.
Though no one may know it yet, a new player had stepped up to play this game. And I was playing for keeps.
A fourth and fifth step-up took me further away from the light.
And to all you hidden players who hide in the shadows, Pain, Obito, Madara, Kaguya, I have this to tell you.
You'll lose.
This board game is no longer yours, it's mine. The moment I had entered, all your destinies, all of your fates were ruined. Not God, not fate, not even Kishimoto himself will be able to save you from me.
When I finally reached the top and stepped through the door into the shrine, none of the light reached me. I had stepped into darkness.
I will win. I will beat you all. So come! Monsters of this world, come! For I challenge you. You are alone no longer, there is a new monster that roams the world and I will hunt and kill every single last one of you. And when that day comes, I will pile up your bleeding corpses and use them to ascend to Godhood.
On that day –
The Rinnegan will be mine!
Turning in place, I looked down at the open trap door on the floor, the one that led to the concealed room where the body of my first kill lay hidden.
That's one down. One enemy I've removed from the board game.
I wonder, how many more will I kill before this is all over?
The answer immediately came to me unbidden.
As many as it takes.
Then I kicked the door shut, sealing the room and leaving the body behind me forever.
End of Arc 1: Birth of a Monster
Author's Notes.
Ok, a show of hands. How many of you saw that coming?
I promise you a plot twist, and hopefully I delivered.
What is a monster?
A monster is not someone that is unfeeling, uncaring. No, In fact it's quite the opposite. A monster, a true monster, is someone who cares, someone who can laugh and cries alongside you even as he slits your throat. A monster is not something that is necessarily evil, in fact the best kind aren't. They just have to be horrifying.
But you know what? I love monster, especially the human kind. I find them fascinating to read about and fun as hell to write about them.
Then there was that big clue right at the beginning of the chapter.
I could keep going about my thoughts behind the chapter for a while so I'll stop right here.
The first arc of the story had come and gone. So that's it for now, I'm nervous as hell about how this chapter and the entire arc would be taken so be sure tell me what you thought about it. What do you think of Hikaru? Like him? Hate him? Sasuke's Fate? And everyone else? I'm dying to know so I'd appreciate any comments.
And thanks for reading, oh and I'm already plotting out arc two so look forward for it.
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